Turning ocean plastic into art and fuel in British Columbia | Earthrise

There are approximately 268,000 tonnes of plastic floating in our oceans, which equates to an average of five trillion individual pieces. It is now believed that plastic waste can be found on every beach in the world, from the busiest beaches to the most isolated and uninhabited islands.
The plastic debris not only harms ocean ecosystems but also find its way to the world's coasts and into the food chain. More than one million seabirds and over 100,000 marine mammals die every year from ingesting plastic - and these numbers are set to increase.
Chloe Dubois is one of the founders of Ocean Legacy, a Canadian NGO tackling the problem of marine plastic pollution.
"When plastic reaches our oceans, it tends to act as little sponges so any chemicals that are in the water, it will begin to absorb these chemicals in the plastic pieces and this is very toxic and very dangerous for marine life. Every day we’re finding the new animal or whale that’s been washed ashore with stomachs full of plastic," says Dubois.
However, with oil giants such as Shell and Exxon investing heavily in the plastics industry, the organisation and others doing similar work in Canada and worldwide, have serious obstacles to conquer in order to make a difference.
One of the ways Ocean Legacy is attempting to address the growing interest in plastics is by using an inclusive and multifaceted approach with the aim of developing a complete zero waste clean-up programme. This includes spatial mapping, which involves communities exposed to plastic waste and allows them to report and act on the situation.
Practical clean up expeditions around Canada's west coast are also one of Ocean Legacy's methods. They organise teams from a pool of up to 5,000 volunteers to get together and physically collect plastic debris from shorelines across the country which is then transported for recycling and repurposing.
Styrofoam becomes picture frames, beach huts and picnic benches, while bits of old tyres hit the road again as new tyres. Ocean Legacy is even starting to engage high-street companies such as Lush cosmetics who are using recycled plastic for their signature packaging.
The Ocean Legacy-developed mobile plastic-to-fuel machine demonstrates that plastic can be turned into diesel and kerosene. These machines, and their larger counterparts, which are in production, are also intended to bring plastic usage full circle, allowing for less fortunate and more remote communities to benefit from what could have ended up as waste in a landfill.
"The larger scale technology that we're looking to develop would be ideal for remote, coastal or even island communities that don't have readily accessible fuel sources and are also inundated with plastic pollution everywhere. It makes sense that these remote communities use that plastic as a resource that will benefit the community," says Dubois.
With high-profile names, such as artist and author Douglas Coupland lending their support to the plastic pollution movement, the future promises many possibilities for making an environmental difference.
Tell us what you think
- Subscribe to our channel: aje.io/AJSubscribe
- Follow us on Twitter: / ajenglish
- Find us on Facebook: / aljazeera
- Check our website: www.aljazeera.com/

[@cynthiaayers7696]

There's your gold... just like making moonshine..lol.🔥😎👍

[@WollongongWacko]

A father and son team in Palestine started doing this years ago

[@OceanLegacy]

Wonderful! The more doing this, the better!

[@TruckTaxiMoveIt]

Link please

[@katz57]

What happens with the sand? It must be very hard to separate the sand from the plastic.

[@sagarthatipalli8971]

This dolls are very nice children will like it

[@larrymcknight1933]

Question: who is putting all this plastic in the ocean? Why can't these people ask the simple questions.

[@TruckTaxiMoveIt]

IMO there are essentially three groups doing the damage, in order most damage: 1) ordinary people who litter by throwing garbage onto streets that gets washed down storm drains, or people who throw single bottle off bridge the cross,, or people who go fishing and through a bottle inti the ocean, or people who go to the beach and leave an unfinished bottle of soda on the beach which gets washed up. 2) contractors who make a deal to accept tons of the stuff for proper disposal but choose to illegally dump instead And 3) slicksters who use old worthless barges to ferry out mega tons if stuff on bad days so that it capsizes due to overloading and rough water

[@juliejay5436]

Truck Taxi I have lost count how many times I have seen people throwing away their beverage bottles off their vehicle while driving on the motorway. The ditches on the sides of motorways are usually filled with lots of trash. I watched a group of school teens throwing away their soda cans on the street, they were only 20 steps away from the nearest street litter bin.

[@larrymcknight1933]

Bottom line you are saying people are both stupid and lazy making even a simple solution difficult.

[@eriknielsen1849]

@@TruckTaxiMoveIt here in moritania it's becorse of no alternative so free space is space to dump trash. So after a hi wind plastic ewery where. Workin on pet reuse right now but my plan is to make a clean burner for plastic later. The only plastic poisonous if burned correct is pvc I will wonder to the day I dye why pvc is not banned to produce

[@nangwin5380]

Should use masks,can get infection.want to do our country clean also.interest it.thank you so much.

[@TruckTaxiMoveIt]

Tie some solar panels to the Thermo machine to create a pretty efficient way to convert plastic to oil. Would like to know how they filtered the oil to get it to look that clean

[@robjworkshop5692]

The commercial units are powered off they gas they produce. The oil produced is industrial grade, and can be used directly, like in the boat's engine - it looks like that straight from the pyro unit. Heat it up to around 250 degrees will distill it further, and produce vehicle-quality synthetic diesel.

[@cynthiaayers7696]

Just like making moonshine.

[@simonjones7785]

and every piece of this plastic is potentialy fuel

[@cesarcosta7577]

👏👏👏

[@robjworkshop5692]

Sure the syn-fuel emits pollutants, but it's cleaner-burning and more efficient than the stuff from the gas station pumps. The Japanese already produce larger commercial units at around $100,000. Of course, the oil companies aren't happy about it...

[@BetoMelancia]

fANTASTIC BUT THE AGAIN THE BIGGEST CORPORATIONS HAVE NO INTEREST ON IT

[@MrFreddiew1]

Is an electric powered/heated device efficient enough? Whats the energy in to energy out ratio in monetary terms, is my 1 liter of diesel cheaper than at the petrol station?...And the ship (boat) is probably not running 100% on plastic/diesel provided from the pryroliser shown, it would takes weeks to fill the boats tank up !.

[@TruckTaxiMoveIt]

They admitted that in the video. Given all of the previous information her bit of hyperbole at the end is permitted

[@MrFreddiew1]

@@TruckTaxiMoveIt Yep you're right, journalistic rights allowed.

[@robjworkshop5692]

The commercial units run off the gas they produce, so much more efficient than their little experimental rig! 1 tonne of plastic produces around 800-900 litres of diesel.

[@eriknielsen1849]

@@robjworkshop5692 only if it's pe. pet from water bottles can only be made to oil at werry high heat so not God economic in that with pet

[@-moumou-]

Flying helicopters around to clean up beaches? The foundation is funded by Cargill, corporate fish farms and new age festivals? The Plastic artist claims he was inspired while visiting "my sacred beach" on "Queen Charlotte Islands". The place is called Haida Gwaii. The technology to harvest oil from plastic was developed many years ago in Japan... and has not been scaled. The West Coast has gone full delusional. Here's a tip... The majority of the worlds mining corporations are headquartered in Vancouver. Something to meditate on while in the flotation tank.

[@voiceofconscience5446]

Unbelievable. Rome is burning, the decadent classes start to notice and fly helicopters for beach cleanups. Go to most third world countries and you will witness dump barges dumping trash straight into the ocean. I've seen it in several places. The wealth of these nations has been stolen. Instead of allying with the poor and resisting capitalism, this narcissist generation on the wealthy coast takes corporate $$ to engage in a non-solution. This is consistent with most of the coasts environmental activism... Keep the coast pristine, pure, organic, without challenging the status quo. Fund your initiatives with grants from Corporations and foundations. Which is to say, enjoy the privileges of corporate super-profits trickling down to charity managers, who come from the stock of the privileged class and trained at neo-liberal universities.

[@eriknielsen1849]

The Chinese make 100 tons a day plastic to oil machines now and the invention is not Japanese.

[@derekelliott3971]

@ all of you - Christ at least they're trying. One thing I've noticed in my 68 years, much of it in corporate management, is if you try to step up and take a leadership role and try to change something for the better, there's no shortage of people (to use the polite term) telling you what you're doing wrong. What are you guys doing?

[@eriknielsen1849]

@@derekelliott3971 I'm fighting plastic in moritania for my own money

[@luismadrid3380]

flying a helicopter all that CO2 realized and money wasted... with a vessel could remove 10 times more and less harmful for the enviroment... even the ecologist are stupid we are totally doomed

[@ORom89]

LL M know an alternative eco friendly way to cross the ocean? Spell it out.

[@luismadrid3380]

@@ORom89 you can go an pick it up with a large boat, can carry 10 times more and consume less fuel and emit less CO2 less expensive but its not as trendy as riding a helicopter

[@TruckTaxiMoveIt]

@@luismadrid3380 1:04 " ... helicopter travel is not just a joy ride but essential" for getting into that part of where they were going. That's another way of saying if we tried to go by boat we would be risking our lives

[@juliejay5436]

LL M I have a better idea - stop littering. The most eco friendly way to do things the right inexpensive way.

[@claravrsnik7858]

The problem is the plastic company in China principally♻️🐾🐝🕊️🎑🌬️☄️🍃

[@ORom89]

Don't blame China. Blame businesses that manufacture in China and don't care about the environment. Blame yourself for supporting those companies by continuing buying their products in plastic packaging.

[@cornpop7805]

Make no mistake, men designed and built the pyrolysis machine and taught the chicks how to run it. The subtext of this video is that chicks can make cool thing besides sandwiches, but that's debatable.